Center for Catholic Faith and Culture

The Center for Catholic Faith and Culture exists to enhance and enrich the work done by Duquesne faculty, administrators, staff, and students. The Center develops innovative ways to integrate the Catholic intellectual tradition more deeply and broadly across the life of Duquesne. Toward that end, we pursue initiatives that engage historical and contemporary Catholic thought in such fields as the arts, aesthetics, business, economics, literature, and science. The Center supports programs that connect and network scholars from across Duquesne's nine schools and creates opportunities for cross-disciplinary research and teaching that engage and apply Catholic ideas and ideals.

Catholic ideals and ideas animate Duquesne University. They orient and inform our community in all its dimensions—academic, professional, spiritual, cultural, and moral. This common inheritance and shared dialogue unites Duquesne with other Catholic colleges and universities. Yet the Spiritan strand of that tradition imbues Duquesne with a distinctive identity and mission. Our Spiritan heritage is characterized by special commitments to educating the whole person, liberating those who suffer injustice, enacting cultural sensitivity, and sustaining spiritual openness in complex and challenging times.

Catholic ideals are grounded in a fearless spirit of inquiry and a confidence that the truths of our faith and the truths of reason are not opposed, but in fact are ultimately and profoundly compatible.The Center for Catholic Faith and Culture embraces and seeks to deepen Duquesne’s distinctive Catholic and Spiritan identity in a fashion that regards hospitality, charitable interfaith engagement, and cultural sensitivity as key ingredients for living that identity faithfully in the modern world. 

We promote research, teaching, and programs that engage and contribute to the Catholic intellectual tradition. We communicate the mission within the University and outside of it. We collaborate with University offices and programs to support programs across sectors of the University that enable us to live our mission consistently.

We support faculty scholarship that engages mission-related topics, resources and problems.  We provide programs to educate members of the Duquesne community and interested visitors about aspects of the Catholic faith and culture. We develop initiatives that highlight the resonance and relevance of Catholic perspectives in the different disciplines and professions that make up our nine schools. We support and cooperate with programs that focus on culturally diverse contributions to the Catholic faith and culture.

We encourage scholarship and teaching in the liberal arts, sciences, and professional schools that bring the resources of the Catholic intellectual tradition to bear on important contested issues. We support Duquesne's commitment to mission and justice in local and global contexts.

We support the work of Spiritan Campus Ministry. We look for ways to integrate ethics across the Duquesne curriculum. We create programs for faculty, staff, students and alumni to learn more about the moral and spiritual wisdom of Catholic tradition.